Many hunters were up before dawn, including Anthony Lingenfelter who wasn’t wasting any time.

“He came out and I took a shot with the muzzleloaders and he ran maybe 20 yards and that was it,” Lingenfelter said.

Protesters, however, let it be known Monday that they opposed the bear hunt.

“Go home cowards. Go home hunters. Go home murderers,” one man shouted outside the Wittingham Wildlife Management Area Weigh Station.

Bill Crain, a college psychology professor from New York, was arrested after stepping past netting set up to keep protesters out.

“They’re restricting us as if this is Nazi Germany,” Crain told CBS 2’s Christine Sloan as he was being arrested.

The first black bear to be brought to the weighing station in Newton, N.J. was an adult male about 6-feet long from head-to-toe. After a physical inspection, wildlife officials realized the bear killed in the New Jersey hunt was actually from Pennsylvania.

“It shows that our populations are not distinct, they’re definitely linked,” an official with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife said.

State wildlife officials said migration patterns across the Delaware River have no bearing on the need to reduce New Jersey’s population of an estimated 3,400 black bears.

For this hunt the state issued about 6,500 permits. There are four hunting zones, all in the Northwestern corner of the Garden State, where the animals have become increasingly visible and sometimes destructive.